


And Baby You Can Sleep While I Drive

by merle_p



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Pining, Season/Series 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29274171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: “So,” Dean says, hesitantly. “This is a dream then?”Sam blinks, confused. “Well, obviously.”“Huh,” Dream-Dean says and scratches his neck. He shifts awkwardly from his right to his left foot but otherwise stays where he is.Sam rubs his face. He isn’t entirely sure why they are having this conversation. He isn’t entire sure why Dean is still here.“So if you didn’t come to kill me,” he asks, “then what do you want?”Dream-Dean frowns. “I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I guess I just wanted to make sure you are okay.”
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 137
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	And Baby You Can Sleep While I Drive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_milky_way](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_milky_way/gifts).



> Dear the_milky_way, thank you for the inspiration! I embraced your prompt about magic dreams and ran with it - I hope you like the result. 
> 
> The story takes place at some point after 14.15 "Peace of Mind."
> 
> The title is a line from the song "You Can Sleep While I Drive" by Melissa Etheridge.

It’s the middle of the night, and he opens his eyes to see the dark outline of a figure standing in the doorway to his bedroom, unmoving.

Looks like it’s going to be one of those nights again. He pushes himself up to sitting, drags a tired hand through his messy hair.

“Are you here to kill me?” he asks drowsily.

“Kill you?” The shadow takes two steps into the room, and now Sam can actually make out Dean’s features, can identify the shocked look on his face.

“Why would you say that?”

Sam shrugs. “It’s just that this is how these dreams usually go.” He looks down at his hands. “Michael. Wearing your face. Coming to kill me.”

Dean winces noticeably. He opens his mouth, seems to think better of it, closes it, then opens it again.

“Well, I’m not Michael,” he finally says, roughly. 

Sam feels something inside him settle. “Yes.” He sinks back against his pillow. “Good.”

“So,” Dean says, hesitantly. “This is a dream then?”

Sam blinks, confused. “Well, obviously.”

“Huh,” Dream-Dean says and scratches his neck. He shifts awkwardly from his right to his left foot but otherwise stays where he is.

Sam rubs his face. He isn’t entirely sure why they are having this conversation. He isn’t entire sure why Dean is still here.

“So if you didn’t come to kill me,” he asks, “then what do you want?”

Dream-Dean frowns. “I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I guess I just wanted to make sure you are okay.”

“Oh,” Sam makes, feels warmth washing over him like a gentle wave rolling across the beach. He hesitates.

“You can stay, if you want.”

Dean doesn’t move for so long that Sam wonders idly if he’s about to fade away. About to turn into Michael, or Lucifer, or the demon version of himself. Sam has seen it all over the years.

Instead, Dream-Dean crosses the room and comes to stand next to the bed, looking oddly wary, as if he still expects to be sent away. Sam flips the covers back in invitation, and Dean climbs in next to him without a word, settles in, not very close, but close enough for their elbows to touch when he shifts.

Sam lies back and smiles into the dark. If after all that Dean is still going to kill him tonight, he thinks, at least maybe this way it won’t be so bad.

“Sam –“ Dean chokes out, his voice all wrong, twisted with some unspeakable emotion, and Sam wonders if he said that last bit out loud or if Dream-Dean can read his thoughts – but before he can find the words to ask the question, sleep pulls him under, and for the rest of the night there is only dark.

Waking up to an empty bed is disorienting. The alarm clock on his nightstand shows 8:36am, and he stares at the display until the six has shifted into a seven and he is halfway certain that he is reading the numbers right. After two weeks of jolting up from a fitful sleep at three, four in the morning and lying awake for hours until it seems at least halfway reasonable to get up, sleeping this long feels almost obscenely decadent.

He shuffles into the kitchen, still in his yoga pants, and does a double take when he finds Dean sitting at the kitchen table, a cardboard box from the archives at his elbow, a cup of coffee in front of him.

Sam clears his throat and Dean looks up from his phone, something unexpectedly tentative in his eyes.

“You – uh,” he starts. “You slept kind of long today.”

Sam makes a beeline for the coffeemaker. There is a clean cup waiting for him next to the carafe, and something in Sam’s chest contracts at the sight.

“You, on the other hand, are up kind of early,” he points out, sliding into a seat on the opposite side of the table, hands wrapped around his steaming cup.

“Yeah, well,” Dean says. He pushes the cardboard box against the wall to make room for Sam’s elbows and his coffee.

“Woke up to pee, couldn’t fall back asleep, figured I might as well get an early start.” He tilts his head, looks up at Sam from underneath lowered lashes.

“How are you feeling?”

The question feels loaded, and Sam takes a sip from his coffee before he responds. “Good,” he says, and realizes even as he is speaking that it’s actually the truth. He rubs his eyes. “Pretty good. Just had kind of a weird dream.”

Dean gives him a sharp look. “More nightmares?”

Sam frowns, tries to remember what he told Dean about the nightmares ( _did_ he tell Dean about the nightmares?). He comes up empty.

“No,” he finally says. “No nightmares. Just weird.”

Dean wriggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Not _that_ kind of weird,” Sam sighs exasperatedly, and tries not to think too hard about why the truth feels a little like a lie.

“So what’s all this then?” He reaches for the cardboard box, equal parts eager to change the topic and genuinely curious.

“Oh,” Dean gestures, a little dismissively. “All the random crap we dug out of storage the other day to maybe help us figure out what the hell to do about Jack’s soul.” He shrugs. “Or whatever is left of it.”

“Right,” Sam nods, brings the coffee cup to his mouth with his right hand and sticks the left one into the box. “You would think a society with such a fondness for paperwork wouldn’t just stuff boxes of unlabeled, potentially dangerous objects into storage shelves but somehow we just keep finding more and more of these things. It’s like they are reproducing when we aren’t paying attention.”

Inside the box, his fingers bump against a hard, smooth object and he wraps his fist around it instinctively. It’s the polished wooden ring with the carved symbols on the inside that he vaguely remembers pulling out of a random filing cabinet two days ago. He spins it on the table, watches it dance on the surface until it topples onto its side. 

“Still have no clue what this could be.” He picks it up again, rolls it across the tabletop towards Dean who catches it easily and balances it on his outstretched palm.

“Magical teething ring?”

Sam snorts into his mug. “Are you even supposed to let babies chew on wood?”

Dean frowns. “Probably not,” he concedes. “I wouldn’t know. You mostly chewed on my fingers when your molars came in.”

“Do you actually remember that or are you just making shit up?” Sam asks suspiciously.

Dean only smirks in response and drops the ring back into the box without much care.

“Anyway,” he says. “Figured you might want to try and identify some of this junk since we got nothing else to do today.”

Sam furrows his brows. “No case? Did you check the news already? Because …”

“Uh-uh,” Dean says, lifting a stern index finger. “You just spent the last two weeks running yourself ragged and then let the mayor of knock-off Pleasantville brainwash you into wearing a freaking cardigan and playing house with a girl in a petticoat. I know the bunker is full of bad memories right now, but you said you were going to stop running.”

“Right,” Sam says reluctantly. “But –“

“No,” Dean says firmly. “No cases for you this week, my friend. Look, Castiel took Jack and the snake on a soul-searching family bonding trip to Wisconsin, or so they claim. They’ll be gone for a couple days. And just to reassure you, I did check the news, there’s nothing serious going on except for some cattle mutilations in Idaho, and you know just as well as I do that dead livestock usually means …”

“… vampires or werewolves trying to be good,” Sam completes his sentence. “I know.”

“Exactly,” Dean nods. “So as long as they don’t snack on humans, why bother them. They deserve a break too, after what I –“ He clenches his teeth, looks away. “- after what Michael did to them.”

“Uhm, sure,” Sam says slowly. Under other circumstances, he would perhaps be more suspicious of Dean’s unexpected turn towards a policy of mutual ignorance, but the languid warmth his dream left him with still lingers in his bones and makes it far more difficult to care.

And Dean is right. After finally kicking Michael out of Dean’s head for good, after _killing_ Michael, maybe they really do deserve a bit of a break.

“Okay then.” He takes a breath, knocks back the rest of his coffee, and reaches for the box. “I guess I’ll see what I can find out.”

Miraculously, he makes it through an entire day in the bunker without coming even close to a nervous breakdown. For the sake of what he thinks of as exposure therapy but might very well just be sheer masochism, he forces himself to sit at the map table where he found the Apocalypse World hunters lying in their own blood. Whenever Maggie’s terrified face appears in front of his inner eye, he inhales deeply and replaces it with an image of her smile, slapping a good memory like a band-aid over the bad one.

It helps that Dean shows up at some point in the early afternoon, down to his t-shirt, a smudge of black on his elbow, balancing a plate with a sandwich and two beer bottles in his hands. He shoves the sandwich and a beer at Sam and settles into his chair with his own bottle in a way that makes it clear that he’s not planning to go anywhere until Sam has eaten his food.

“What have you been up to?” Sam asks, resigning himself to the inevitable. Predictably, there is too much deli meat, because Dean has a tendency to stuff meat and carbs into him when he’s worried, but the turkey is layered with fresh tomatoes and plenty of lettuce, and as soon as Sam takes the first bite, he realizes just how hungry he was.

Dean watches him chew and swallow with narrow eyes before he leans back in his chair, temporarily satisfied.

“Tinkering around on the car,” he says. “Finally replaced the struts. I had the parts lying around since before we got Mom back, but between one apocalypse and the next, I just never got around to it.”

“I didn’t realize she was broken,” Sam frowns and licks mayonnaise off his fingers.

Dean gives him an odd look, and Sam makes a point of sliding his index finger into his mouth and pulling it free with a pop just to be annoying. He is not going to let Dean of all people judge him for his table manners.

Dean coughs and looks away. “She isn’t broken,” he says. “But a classy lady like her, you gotta put the effort in if you want to keep her. Proper care and feeding, TLC, you know. Kinda like – well, anyway,” he continues and takes another swallow of his beer.

“How are things coming along in the nerd corner?”

“Uhm, okay, I guess,” Sam says. He looks down at his plate and realizes that somehow, he has eaten the entire sandwich without even really noticing. “Maybe taking a day off wasn’t the worst idea.”

“Told you,” Dean grins, looking way too pleased with himself. “So let me hear what you found out.”

Sam goes to bed early that night, which is unusual on its own. Other nights, he will drag his feet until he can’t possibly keep his eyes open any longer, equally dreading the bad dreams and the hours when he tosses and turns without finding rest. But today, his bed actually seems to be calling to him when the hands of the clock inch towards midnight, and for once, sleep comes easily.

He opens his eyes to the dim reddish glow of low-hanging ceiling lamps and the sound of Metallica’s _Enter Sandman_. It takes him a moment to realize where he is but when he recognizes his surroundings, he feels a shiver run down his spine.

“Sammy,” Dean says, from behind the counter, dish towel slung over his shoulder. He looks confused.

“Huh,” he says, “this has never happened before.”

“What is this?” Sam asks, and he can hear the panic creeping into his own voice. So much for his hope to escape the nightmares for another night.

“Is this Michael’s doing? But we got you out of here.”

“Relax, Sammy,” Dean smiles reassuringly. “Michael is dead. This is just a dream.”

“Oh,” Sam says. The sense of terror seeps out of him from one moment to the next, leaving him faintly disoriented, dazed. “Right, a dream.”

“You want a drink?” Dean asks, and Sam slides onto a bar stool, allows himself to look around: there is no one else in the room, it’s just the two of them and a Metallica song playing on low, and he figures he might as well enjoy this dream for as long as it doesn’t involve blood and pain and death.

Dean pulls a bottle of Garrison Brothers Bourbon off the shelf, pours each of them a generous serving, pushes Sam’s glass across the counter. Sam can’t really taste the whiskey when he puts the glass to his lips, but he does feel a familiar warmth spreading low in his gut as the drink goes down.

“So why this bar,” he asks, sliding his forearms onto the counter. “Is this really your dream? Your happy ending?”

The question has been on his mind ever since he and Castiel pried Dean’s consciousness out of Michael’s claws, but it never felt quite like the right time to ask while Michael was still up in there, slamming his fists against the locked door of the storage room inside Dean’s mind. Or perhaps Sam was simply afraid of what Dean might tell him if he pried. And it’s not like Sam thinks this dream version of Dean will give him an actual answer, but perhaps just forcing himself to ask the question out loud is what this really is about. 

“Don’t get me wrong.” He glances around, at the bottles on the shelf, the pool table, the windows with the blinking neon signs. “It’s nice. It feels like you. I just – you never really mentioned that this is something you might want, you know – before Michael had you trapped down here.”

Dean pours them both another drink and doesn’t bother putting the cap back on the bottle.

“I don’t know,” he says, face half-hidden behind his whiskey glass. “Was wearing a cardigan and drinking martinis in Charming Acres your happy ending?”

“Of course not,” Sam says, indignantly. “That was – getting cast in the jerk-off fantasy of a superpowered villain with a hard-on for the McCarthy era. The only reason it was pleasant was because I wasn’t thinking about all the bad stuff that had happened to us while I was there. But this – your own mind came up with this.”

“I guess so,” Dean says reluctantly. He looks almost embarrassed. “And it wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Pouring drinks and playing music? Trading information for hunters? I could be good at it, don’t you think?”

“I think you could be good at anything you set your mind to, Dean,” Sam says simply. “But you never brought it up.”

Dean glances away. “Didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Me?” Sam raises his brows. “What do I have to do with it?”

“Come on.” Dean lifts his hands, as if it’s obvious. “Do you really see me doing the books myself?”

He starts fiddling with the bottle cap. “I knew something was off. When Michael had me trapped in my own mind. The illusion kept looping and jumping, like a … like a cassette tape that gets tangled. You wind it back up with a pencil but it never sounds quite right again.”

“How did you know?” Sam asks quietly. There is a weight on his chest that makes it difficult to breathe.

Dean looks at him from across the counter, eyes dark. The music changes abruptly, and Sam frowns when he recognizes the opening notes _._

“ _Nothing Else Matters_?” he asks inanely. “That’s not the next song on the album.”

Dean almost smiles. “I can’t believe you actually remember that.”

“Dean –“ Sam starts, and there’s something important he needs to say, but the dream is already fading, and the bar blurs into a sea of bokeh.

““Hey,” Sam says, excitedly waving the heavy book at Dean as he steps into the kitchen. “I think I found …”

He pauses, sniffs the air, feels his stomach grumbling at the smell.

“Are you making burgers?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, sounding weirdly defensive, as if he actually expects Sam to complain. He wipes his hands on his apron. “I was just going to see if you want – “

“Oh god, yes,” Sam says and sits down at the table, book hitting the surface with a thump. “I’m starving.”

Dean raises a bemused eyebrow at him, but a moment later he wordlessly slides a plate across the table. The burger looks perfect, like Dean’s burgers always do, but this one comes, inexplicably, with a small pile of greens on the side, and Sam simultaneously feels his mouth water and his heart tighten with almost unbearable fondness at the sight.

He is halfway through the burger when he glances up and finds Dean staring at him over his own food.

“What?” he asks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Nothing,” Dean says, but the look of stunned fascination in his eyes tells a different story.

“Do I have something on my face?” Sam asks, suspiciously.

Dean shakes his head. “I just haven’t seen you wolf down red meat like this since you were sixteen and hit your major growth spurt. Are you …“ He tilts his chin, meaningfully. “Are you sure you are feeling normal?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “If you are asking whether I feel the urge to fang out – the answer is no, I didn’t turn into a werewolf. Or a vampire. Dean, I haven’t left the bunker since I came back from Charming Acres, what do you think should have happened to me?”

Dean purses his lips. “You didn’t go for a run this morning either?” he asks carefully, and Sam blinks.

“No,” he says, confused. “I don’t know, I guess I just … forgot? Just didn’t really feel like leaving the house, I suppose. But I am fine, Dean. I’m – I feel good. Energized.”

Dean stares at him for another moment, then his expression clears. “Yeah,” he says thoughtfully. “I’m feeling it too. Woke up at eight sharp today without setting an alarm.”

“Huh,” Sam says. “Same.”

“Kind of amazing what two days of downtime can do, hm?” Dean says, and absent-mindedly spears a leaf of lettuce with his fork. In silent awe, Sam watches him devour the greens on his own plate with gusto.

“Amazing, yes,” he says slowly, biting back the teasing remark that is already on the tip of his tongue. “Maybe we should do it more often.”

Dean’s gaze catches his. “Maybe,” Dean says and then clears his throat. “So, uhm. You said you found something?”

“Oh yeah,” Sam says. He reaches for the book. “Well, I actually managed to sort through most of stuff in that box, and just so you know, we now appear to be in possession of shackles that can trap a unicorn.”

“Great.” Dean grimaces. “Because that’s exactly what we need, a domesticated unicorn.”

“I think that could be nice,” Sam says innocently. “We could keep it in the garage.”

He holds up his hand to stop the indignant response he can see taking shape on Dean’s tongue. “But more importantly – remember the magical teething ring? Turns out there is a reference in the books.”

He finds the bookmarked page and spins the heavy catalog around for Dean to see. 

“Apparently it was a gift from the British Men of Letters for … Mr. and Mrs. David Ackers.”

“Huh,” Dean says. “Mrs. Ackers was a member of the Men of Letters?”

“Not that I know of,” Sam shakes his head. “Maybe that was more of a formality? Anyway, Ackers was killed by Abaddon in 1958, and his widow died in the eighties – no children, so there’s no one we could ask. But apparently the carvings are an old Celtic spell. And look at this – ”

Sam stabs a finger at the page. Dean obediently bends his head, his exhale ghosting over the back of Sam’ s hand.

“Soul weaver. Connects loose pieces.” Dean glances up at him, brows furrowed. “That’s … poetic? And freaking mysterious. You think they mean weaving as in … “  
  
“Healing, yes,” Sam nods. “Fixing a broken soul. I guess?” He lifts his shoulders. “I mean, what else could it be?”

“I don’t know,” Dean says. He leans back, arms crossed over his chest. “First thing I hear about the Celts being experts in curing soullessness, but stranger things have happened. Is there nothing else in the notes? Like, what are the odds that this thing is going to turn Jack into a frog if we use it on him?”

“I mean, you can read for yourself,” Sam says, “but there is really not much else, except that it, and I quote, ‘finds those who are ready for it.’”

Dean drags his palm over his mouth. “I have no idea what that means, but I do know we have both been touching the ring, and nothing has happened at all, so – chances are it’s harmless, right?”

“I hope so,” Sam sighs. He pushes a hand through his hair. “But it’s the best lead we have, unless Castiel and Jack find something better while they are gone.”

“So you wanna just let Jack rub it for a while and see if it brings back his soul?” Dean asks.

“I guess,” Sam says. “I did send a picture to Rowena to see if she knows anything more about this thing. If it’s really Celtic, that might be her area of expertise …” He stretches lazily, feeling pleasantly full and satisfied. He is almost tempted to take an afternoon nap.

Dean clears his throat, and Sam snaps back to the present, suddenly self-conscious about letting himself be so comfortable. 

“Right,” he says, straightening in his seat. “Guess I’ll go back to my books and see what else I can find.”

He hesitates. “You wanna come help?”

“Uhm.” Dean shifts. “I actually figured I would take the car out for a drive,” he says, without looking at Sam. “Gotta make sure the new struts are working properly.”

Sam’s good mood dissipates so abruptly he almost feels dizzy with it.

“Is this …” His voice is shaking and he isn’t even sure why. “Is this an _I gotta get away from Sam and clear my head_ kind of drive, or more the _I am going to Donna’s cabin and lock myself into a suicide box_ type of drive?”

“What?” Dean stares at him, looking genuinely startled. “Neither. It’s an _I did repairs on the car and now I have to see if she’s working_ kind of drive.”

“Then why are you being so weird about it?” Sam asks, torn between the immense dread he feels at the idea of Dean leaving the bunker and the mortification in the face of his obvious overreaction.

A faint blush tinges Dean’s cheekbones. “I was being weird because I wasn’t sure I should be leaving you alone here,” Dean grumbles. “And now you are kind of proving my point.”

He pauses, shakes his head. “God,” he laughs ruefully. “We are really messed up, aren’t we.”

“What else is new,” Sam huffs. He forces his face into a smile, feels a little better when Dean actually smiles back.

“Sorry,” he says. “Not sure what – anyway. Yes. Go for your drive. I’ll be fine.”

Dean bites his lip. “You should come along,” he says suddenly. “You know, provided you can tear yourself away from your captivating research for an afternoon.”

Sam swallows thickly. “You don’t have to babysit me, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Dean says. The blush is now spreading all the way to the tips of his ears. “Come anyway. We’ll make a day of it. When’s the last time you and me went for a drive, just because, no reason?”

Sam raises his brows. “I don’t know, in 1999?”

“Now that’s just sad,” Dean says, and he says it jokingly, but he sounds like he means it. “I’ll meet you in the garage in ten.”

Dean proclaims the struts to be working perfectly ten minutes into their drive, but they are halfway through Nebraska by the time he stops for gas.

It’s a mild day, and Sam rolls the window down and lets the breeze ruffle his hair while he listens to Dean sing along to Led Zeppelin’s _Heartbreaker_. When the tape ends, Sam finds the folk-rock station because it’s that or Christian music, and Dean nods approval and sings along to Bob Dylan too.

At the gas station, Dean disappears into the tiny convenience store, and when Sam comes back from the restroom, Dean is waiting for him with two cups of coffee, a package of Twinkies, and a net of oranges that he drops into Sam’s lap as soon as he slides back into his seat.

“Really?” Sam asks, incredulously, looking back and forth between Dean and the oranges in his lap.

“What,” Dean says. “You like oranges.”

“Sure I do,” Sam says slowly. “But when was the last time you willingly consumed fruit that wasn’t baked into a pie?”

“You are always on my case about eating more vitamins,” Dean says reproachfully. “You do not get to complain about this.”

Sam lifts placating hands. “Not complaining, got it,” he agrees, and starts to peel the first fruit as soon as Dean pulls out of the parking lot. The orange is firm and juicy, stickily leaking over his hands.

“You want?” he asks, holding out a slice for Dean, and his brother tears his eyes away from the road long enough to raise his brows at him. 

“Not going to get juice all over the steering wheel, dude,” he says, and then leans to the right just far enough to take the fruit from Sam’s fingers with his mouth. His lips brush Sam’s fingertips as his teeth close around the slice, and Sam pulls his hand back quickly, heart pounding, and tries not to think about how none of this will last once they go back to hunting again.

They stop at a diner for dinner on the way back and it is almost midnight by the time they get home. Sam dozes off in the car at some point after they cross the state line and only wakes in the bunker’s garage to Dean’s hand on his neck, staying alert just long enough to shuffle to his room and strip off his jeans before dropping into bed and going back to sleep.

When he next opens his eyes, he finds himself standing in the junkyard behind Bobby’s place, pale early spring sun in his eyes. Somewhere nearby, on a crappy car radio, Leonard Cohen is singing “If you want a driver, climb inside, Or if you want to take me for a ride, you know you can,” and the sense of familiarity is so overwhelming that it takes him a moment to remember that Bobby’s house was burned to the ground years ago.

Sam looks down and sees Dean’s legs sticking out from underneath the Impala, wriggling along with whatever the upper part of his body is doing to the bottom of the car. When Sam taps Dean’s foot with the tip of his boot, the movements still.

“Sammy?” Dean asks and slides out from underneath the car, sweaty and disheveled, soaked shirt clinging to his skin.

Sam lifts the chilled bottles he hadn’t even realized he was holding until just a moment ago. “Time for a break?” he asks, and Dean climbs to his feet and gratefully reaches for the beer Sam offers him, his fingers grazing Sam’s as he takes the bottle from his hand.

“Thanks, man,” he says, and uses his forearm to wipe the sweat off his face.

“So what are you doing here?” he asks, squinting at Sam over the rim of his bottle. “Don’t tell me you are here to offer your help with the car.”

Sam shuffles his feet, feels himself blush for no good reason at all. “Just checking on you,” he says, and the answer feels right, even though he hadn’t really thought about it until Dean actually asked.

“You know I’m not good with cars.”

Dean drinks with his head thrown back, his throat working, and Sam forcefully has to drag his gaze away.

“You’ve always managed to keep her alive when I was gone,” Dean says.

“Yeah, barely,” Sam scoffs. He leans back against the hood of the car, legs stretched out in front of him, plays with the bottle between his palms. The afternoon sun is warm on his neck.

Dean sits down next to him on the hood, glancing at him from the side. When he moves, their arms brush.

“You have lived in and out of this car for almost as long as I have, and you still act like you got nothing to do with her.”

Sam shrugs, looks down at his hands. “Dad gave her to you, didn’t he?”

Dean shakes his head. “Why do you always do this?” he asks, frustrated.

Sam looks up, tries not to get distracted by the freckles that are sprinkled across Dean’s nose, not as prominent now as they used to be but still visible if one just gets close enough.

“Do what?” he asks weakly.

“Disconnect.“ Dean gestures with his bottle. “From whatever … whoever ... you see me take an interest in.”

“I don’t know,” Sam says quietly. This is not real, so there is no reason to pretend that he doesn’t know exactly what Dean is talking about.

“You have so little that’s just yours. I guess I’m trying not to interfere.”

“Well, stop it,” Dean says sharply. “It’s annoying.”

Sam blinks in shock, and Dean’s expression softens in response to whatever he sees in Sam’s face.

“You know none of it means anything if I can’t … if we can’t do it together.”

Sam feels tears prickling in his eyes. “Alright,” he says, clears his throat. “Yeah, alright.”

Dean keeps looking at him. “So this is just another weird dream, then,” he finally says, and Sam snorts through the tears.

“You really think we would be having this conversation if it wasn’t?”

“Good point,” Dean says, and then he puts his hand over the top of Sam’s spine, fingers tangling in the curls at the nape of Sam’s neck.

Sam sits very still and thinks that perhaps if he just never moves, this moment is not going to go away.

“Sammy,” Dean says quietly. “Do you …”

Sam turns his head, then. Dean’s mouth is right there, welcoming him.

They are kissing, with Dean’s fingers in his hair and Sam’s hand splayed over Dean’s chest, and Sam feels so warm, with the setting sun on his face and Dean’s breath on his lips and Dean’s heartbeat under his palm.

He wakes up hard and aching, his skin still tingling with the sensory memory of Dean’s tongue tracing the shape of his lips.

One of those dreams, then.

He groans into his pillow, frustrated with himself. He hasn’t dreamed about Dean like this in a while: if there is one good thing to say about the nightmares, it’s that they are always lying in wait, ready to drown out any more enjoyable images, even ones that are as shameful and guilty as this.

But apparently just two days of downtime with his brother are enough to tease him once more with tantalizing flashes of _what ifs_ , and the fact that Dean seems determined to exorcise the looming specter of Michael from the bunker with blatant displays of culinary domesticity certainly doesn’t help.

He gets out of bed before he can give into the temptation to wrap his hand around his dick, marveling at how well-rested he feels even after their late return the day before.

He grabs a towel from the back of his chair, reaches for the door handle, and then jumps back in surprise when Dean’s door down the hallway swings open right as he steps outside his room.

Dean looks equally startled, staring at Sam across the corridor with wide eyes. Sam feels naked under Dean’s gaze, still awkwardly half-hard in his boxers, and tendrils of panic are slithering up between his ribs – for a moment, he is convinced that Dean must be able to tell what is going on in his mind, but then Dean’s gaze abruptly drops away, and if Sam didn’t know better, he’d say that the expression on Dean’s face is embarrassment.

“Huh,” Sam finally says, because the silence has been dragging on for too long. “This is weird.”

“You could say that,” Dean says, sounding relieved at Sam’s reaction and puzzled at the same time. “Second day in a row we’ve woken up at the same time.”

“Has this ever happened before?” Sam asks as he walks down the hallway, in the direction of the bathroom and towards Dean.

“I don’t think so.” Dean scratches his head. “Maybe this is one of those things that happen when people spend too much time together under one roof? You know, like women’s periods synching when they hang out all the time.”

Sam snorts. “Pretty sure that’s a myth, Dean,” he says, and Dean narrows his eyes at him.

“How would you know?”

Sam could say _Jessica_ or _Amelia_ , but for reasons he doesn’t let himself closely examine, bringing their names up feels impossible right now. “A lot of female-centric witchcraft revolves around women’s cycles,” he says instead, lightly. “There’s an entire book in the library dedicated to it if you are interested.”

“Uh,” Dean makes. “Sounds like you are already an expert on the topic.”

“Anyway,” Sam shrugs. “We’ve been living in each other’s pockets all our lives, why would our sleep schedules start synching up _now_?”

“Probably just a fluke,” Dean says, though there is a trace of doubt in his eyes. He flicks two quick fingers at Sam’s tousled hair. “Well, you get started on your beauty regimen, I’ll go make eggs.”

“It’s called basic hygiene, Dean,” Sam calls after him, “you could try it sometime,” but he is still smiling when he turns on the water in the shower and steps under the stream.

Two plates of scrambled eggs are on the kitchen table when Sam gets there fifteen minutes later, freshly showered and dressed. To his surprise, the wooden ring rests between them, looking harmless and inconspicuous and not at all like something that might potentially cure a soulless half-angel child.

“Cas and Jack just called,” Dean says. He is sitting at the table, but he’s not eating; in fact, he looks a lot like he has been brooding, although he makes a valiant effort at wiping the moody expression off his face when he sees Sam.

“They should be back tomorrow.”

Sam swallows around the unexpected lump in his throat. “That’s … good,” he says, a little uncertainly. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Dean says flatly. His face is blank. He makes no move to reach for his fork. “It’s great.”

Sam pulls two cups from the shelf to distract himself from the strange tension that has suddenly settled over the room, but his phone rings in his pocket before he can start pouring the coffee.

“Rowena,” he says, both as a greeting to her and an announcement for Dean as he puts her on speaker phone.

“Hello Samuel.” Rowena sounds uncharacteristically careful, and Sam remembers with a jolt that she, too, was possessed by Michael only a couple of weeks ago, and that the men and women under his command died at her hand.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” he says, instead of asking her how she feels. “Can you tell us anything about the picture I sent you? You know what it is?”

“I know what it is,” she says. “Though I haven’t seen one of these in a long time. It’s Pictish magic.”

“Pictish?” Sam repeats, surprised. He holds up his free hand wordlessly, and Dean throws the ring at him with impeccable aim.

“There’s no way this thing is that old.”

“The spell is, my dear boy,” Rowena says. “The ring itself is a more recent iteration. Nineteenth century, if I had to guess. Where did you say you got this item again?”

Sam runs his finger along the carvings on the inside of the ring. “Gift from the British Men of Letters to a guy from the American branch and, strangely, his wife. Though I suspect she never got to see it – the guy was killed by a demon before he had a chance to take it home.”

“Ah, but that makes sense,” Rowena says on the other end of the line. “The ring is basically … a more powerful version of an oathing stone.”

“Oathing stone?” Sam glances up to see Dean frowning at him, mirroring the confusion he feels himself. “Isn’t that usually part of …

“Scottish wedding ceremonies, yes,” Rowena confirms.

Dean clears his throat, and Sam steps closer to the table to hold the phone out for him. “So what, this is the Celtic version of a garter toss? It doesn’t do anything?”

“I didn’t say _that_ , Dean,” Rowena responds in the demonstratively patient tone that is her way of telling them when they are being particularly dense. “But I am afraid it is not going to fix the problem of Jack’s soul. It doesn’t heal damaged souls, it just … reinforces connections.”

“What kind of connections?” Sam asks, trying to not to let his disappointment at the news creep into his voice.

“Oathing stones are meant to enhance the spiritual connection between bonded couples, make the vows more meaningful, though it’s mostly a symbolic act,” she explains. “But this one – this one has proper magic. It … well. It allows the partners to draw from the life energy that is created in a marital union.”

At the table, Dean makes a strange little noise. Sam suddenly has a bad feeling about this. 

“And how does it work?” he asks, with growing apprehension. He is very carefully not looking at Dean.

“Dream sex,” Rowena says, and Sam swears that he can feel something inside him crack.

“Or, well, dreamsharing, really,” he hears Rowena continue, though her voice sounds as if it reaches him through a solid barrier, distorted and faint. “But the sexual energy will certainly amplify the effect.”

Sam swallows. “So they are lucid dreams,” he forces himself to say.

“Yes,” Rowena agrees, her voice now barely penetrating the thunderous noise of the hurricane raging in his head. “The lovers can visit each other’s minds through the dreams. The magic siphons off the energy from the dreams and funnels it back into the bond. The more time the lovers spend together in the shared dream space, the closer the bond becomes, the more energy they draw from it.”

There is a sudden crash, and Sam’s eyes fly up to find that Dean has pushed away from the table and in the process has somehow knocked one of the plates onto the ground. Shards and pieces of egg are scattered across the floor, and Dean is staring down at the mess with an unreadable expression on his face.

Sam takes a breath, wills his trembling hands to still.

“How do you activate it?” he asks, trying to keep his voice steady. “A …” He coughs. “A wedding ceremony?”

“It’s Celtic magic, dear,” Rowena says. “They didn’t have to sign paperwork in town hall to be wed. If I had to make a guess, touching the object and thinking intense thoughts about each other would probably suffice. If you don’t mind me asking …”

Dean turns abruptly and walks out. Sam feels his retreat like a punch to the gut.

“Dean –“ he starts weakly, but his brother is ignoring him, or perhaps just too far away to hear his call.

“Samuel?” Rowena’s voice has taken on a concerned note. “Is everything alright?”

“I have to go, Rowena,” he says, his tongue heavy in his mouth. He is striding to the door before he even disconnects the call, breaks into a jog the moment he steps into the hallway.

But Dean must have been in a hurry, because by the time Sam reaches the garage, the Impala and his brother are gone.

Dean doesn’t pick up his phone, and when Sam eventually returns to the kitchen, he finds it buzzing on the counter by the stove. He isn’t entirely surprised – if Dean had wanted to talk, he wouldn’t have left in the first place –, but it does mean that he has no way of tracking Dean’s whereabouts via GPS, and that realization has anxiety take root in his chest like a dark, suffocating vine.

Torn between the impulse to take a car from the garage to search for Dean and the need to stay in case Dean returns, he distracts himself for the first half hour with cleaning the broken plate off the kitchen floor, then tosses the rest of the eggs as well because he is fairly certain he would throw up any food he might put in his mouth right now.

He does drive around for a while after that, but he has no idea where he is going, no idea where Dean might have gone, and by late afternoon, he is back in the still empty bunker and faced with the growing suspicion that there is more to his reaction than his concern for Dean and his fucked-up trauma history can explain. He knows himself well enough to understand that the iron clamp squeezing down on his heart, the jittery feeling in his limbs is going far beyond his usual response patterns, and he can’t help but wonder if Dean, wherever he is, can feel it too, or if it’s just him who feels like he is crawling out of his skin.

Sam eventually caves around ten at night, when there is still no sign from Dean and he is starting to worry that he may be working himself up to an actual heart attack.

He pours himself another glass of whiskey, the fourth one of the night, and dials Rowena’s number again.

“Are you drunk, Samuel?” Rowena asks, as always a little too perceptive for his taste.

“Are there side effects?” he asks, not bothering with a response. And anyway, he is not drunk – the liquor is merely muting his experience of practically shaking apart at the seams.

“You’ll have to be a bit more specific, I’m afraid,” she says slowly, and he sighs.

“The … wedding magic thing. The spell. Does it come with side effects.”

“Well,” she says, “some bleed is to be expected during the initial adjustment period.”

“Bleeding?” Sam asks, startled, and Rowena huffs, amused.

“ _Personality bleed_ , Samuel,” she says. “While the souls adjust to the connection, there is going to be some … blurriness, if you will. Taking on the other person’s habits. Struggling with boundaries.”

“You mean, like changing sleep and eating patterns,” he says. “Having separation anxiety.” He swallows. “Like freaking the fuck out when the other person is gone.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she agrees. “All those things would likely resolve once the union has been properly established.” She pauses. “Sam, this is rather specific. What …”

“So if the bond can’t settle,” he continues, watching his fingers tremble around his glass. “Because … because the marriage hasn’t been … consummated …”

There is a long pause on the other end of the line, and then Rowena sighs: “Oh, Samuel,” with far more pity in her voice than he can take.

“Don’t –“ he starts. “Don’t even ask, please.”

“Alright, I won’t,” she says gently. “Please remember that I’ve been practicing magic for about three hundred years, I am not going to pretend like this comes as a big surprise. But tell me just one thing, since you did call me for help: Which one of you is having second thoughts right now?”

Sam laughs tiredly. “I’m sure we are both having _a lot_ of thoughts about _a lot_ of things right now,” he says. “But Dean is the one who took the car and left, if that’s what you are asking. I’m just having a magic-induced panic attack.”

“Well, Samuel,” Rowena says soothingly, and he dimly thinks that he must be pretty far gone for her to talk to him like this. “The good news is that you know exactly how to find him.”

Sam freezes.

“Yes,” he finally says slowly. He feels the anxiety loosen its grip on his insides, just the tiniest bit. “Yes, I suppose I do.”

He ends the call shortly thereafter, he finishes his drink.

And then he gets ready to go to bed.

When he comes to, it is dark, and he is standing in the parking lot of a nondescript motel, illuminated by flickering fluorescent lights. He does not recognize the place and yet it feels familiar, the way every motel anywhere in the United States has come to look familiar over the years, and somehow he doesn’t even need to think to know that the key he is holding in his right hand fits into the lock to Room 24.

The room is as generic as the building is from the outside, the same worn-down carpet, the same ugly wallpaper he has seen countless times before. The bedside lamp is turned on, casting the room in a dim yellow light. Dean is sitting on the king-size bed that takes up most of the space in the room, and Sam almost laughs when he sees the set-up, wonders what part of Dean’s subconscious dreamt up a room with just one bed.

“Hey Sammy,” Dean says when he sees him standing in the doorway, his voice resigned and tired but not surprised. “How did you find me?”

“I didn’t,” Sam responds and closes the door behind himself. “Went to sleep, woke up right outside your door.” He glances around the space. “Is this where you are right now?”

“This?” Dean shrugs. “No. This is just … I don’t know, some place we stayed at some point, maybe.” He huffs a little. “I’m sleeping in the car behind a rest stop just outside of Lebanon. I did want to keep going but …” He grimaces. “Felt so sick, it was pulling over or throwing up behind the wheel.”

“Yeah,” Sam says awkwardly. “It’s the connection. Rowena thinks it should go away once we … “

“Once we fuck?” Dean asks tightly.

Sam winces.

Dean drags a hand across his face. “Goddamnit,” he says, with emphasis.

“Dean,” Sam says. It takes some effort to get out the words. “We can figure something out. I’m –“ He swallows. “I’m not going to force you into this.”

Dean laughs unhappily. “So what, we are just never going to sleep again at the same time? It’s not like we can actually control it. We had no idea it was happening and still ended up inside each other’s heads. If I’d known …”

Sam wraps his arms around his chest.

“There must be a way to break the connection,” he says quietly. “From what I’ve read, destroying the object isn’t going to do anything but … we’ll … I’m not going to force you into this.”

“You keep saying that as if I’m not the one who kissed you first,” Dean says. He sounds a little angry, and Sam tries not to flinch at the aggression in his voice.

“You were dreaming,” he says, the words tasting sour in his mouth. “Doesn’t mean you want –“

“Really,” Dean says incredulously. “After everything you’ve seen, after everything I’ve said to you in there –“ He presses his flat hand against his own head. “You really think the problem is that I might not want this?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says bitterly. “You tell me. The moment Rowena said _dreamsharing_ , you were out the door like a bat out of hell.”

“Because I never meant for you to know about this,” Dean snaps. “Of course I want. I always did. But it’s going to be bad enough watching you walk away as it is, and I am not sure I’ll be able to –“

Sam reels back as if he got slapped. “What on Earth makes you think I would walk away? Because I wanted to go to college, like, twenty years ago, and Dad kicked me out? Because Dean, that was –“

“You have nightmares about me killing you,” Dean interrupts him, quietly. “The first night, that – I was in your room and you thought I was there to kill you. How is that –“

“Because Michael possessed you,” Sam says slowly. “You let him into your body to save my life, and he used your face to mess with us, but do you really think I don’t know the difference? That any of that matters to me? We left lovers for each other. We’ve killed friends for each other. You’ve been in my head. I’ve been in yours. You bled out all over my hands, and I washed your dead body, and I injected my blood into your veins.”

He takes a step towards the bed. “Tell me how one is supposed to walk away from that because I sure as hell don’t know.”

“Sam,” Dean says, the word a fragile thing, like a plea.

Sam’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he lets himself fall forward, crawls across the covers towards Dean.

Dean reaches for him.

The fall together as if their bodies were made for this (and perhaps they were), their mouths slotting together without hesitation. They are kissing, hungrily, desperately, and it’s as good as the last time, no, better than the last time, so much better, and Sam –

wakes up gasping to an empty bed, in the darkness of his own room.

He pushes himself up to sitting, rubs a hand over his aching chest, struggles for air. He sits like that for a long time, too disoriented to make sense of what happened, too keyed up to fall back asleep, too lonely to do anything but wait.

And then the door to his room inches open, a dark figure appearing in the doorway.

“Sorry it took me so long,” Dean says quietly, sliding his jacket off his shoulders as he steps into the room.

Sam wets his lips. His heart is beating violently in his chest. “Is this a dream?”

“No,” Dean says, teeth flashing white in the dark when he smiles. He unbuttons his shirt, steps out of his jeans, comes to stand by the bed in his underwear.

“Can I come in?”

“You don’t have to ask,” Sam says. He lifts the covers up in invitation, and Dean slides in next to him, reaches for him, pushes Sam back against the mattress, his cock pressing hard and hot through his shorts against Sam’s thigh.

“Are you tired?” Dean asks, hovering above him, one hand flat against Sam’s chest, the other tangled in his hair.

Sam smiles and curves his hand around the back of Dean’s neck, pulling him down into a kiss.

“No,” he says against Dean’s lips, right before he claims his mouth.

“I think we’ve slept long enough.”


End file.
